To thrive in this global economy and meet the changing demands of an increasingly sophisticated consumer base, organizations must bring new products, services, and business models to market faster than ever before. The dawn of the digital era has forced companies to innovate and adapt at lightning speed. Those that don’t will soon be overtaken by the next high-growth, well-funded startup that seizes the opportunity — just ask Blockbuster or the hotel and taxi industries.

The companies of old were built to design products on time, on budget, and at scale according to preplanned forecasts; they were measured by return on investment and market share. These companies are defined by rigid organizational charts, functional silos, meeting after meeting, annual performance reviews, and the pressures of quarterly reports.

Conversely, the entrepreneurial companies of today are built not only to create revolutionary products, but also to discover quickly which products they should pursue next. They’re defined by small teams of cross-functional leaders who work cohesively toward proving preset hypotheses, such as whether or not a new product will inspire customers to purchase more or tell their friends about their experience.

How can traditional hierarchical organizations transform themselves to keep up with the demands of this new economy? Shifting from a command-and-control model to an entrepreneurial one is certainly no easy task. Moving the Titanic takes time, effort, and determination over the long haul.

1. Form Teams of Cross-Functional All-Stars

Your best performers are roughly four times as productive as your average employees. Just imagine how much you could accomplish with a team full of all-stars.

Put your best developers, designers, product managers, strategists, and shared-service business partners on one team with a shared mission and the freedom to dream and create. You’ll see a more productive team with innovative, creative ideas that can move your business forward.

2. Task Your All-Star Teams With Building Customer-Centric MVPs

As teams of all-stars brainstorm and test new product or service ideas, they should ensure that each one is intensely focused on solving a real consumer problem — and that customers would be willing to pay more for an innovative solution.

Don’t wait to achieve some internal measure of perfection to release a new product. Instead, build what author Eric Ries calls a “minimum viable product” (MVP), or “that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”

For example, an eCommerce retailer with which I’m working is testing whether to open brick-and-mortar stores throughout Manhattan and Los Angeles. Instead of investing millions in doing a full launch, the brand built a temporary pop-up shop that allowed it to test, measure, and adapt the model first. Now, several iterations later, the retailer is more ready and confident than ever to begin opening stores across the nation.

3. Fund Projects in Stages

Take a page from venture capital and start your all-star team with a seed round of funding, just enough to build, launch, and measure an MVP. Once the product is validated, give the team an alpha round of financing, then beta, and so forth until you’re ready to scale the product fully. This type of funding method encourages the team to adopt a scarcity mentality and continuously prove the concept in order to get more buy-in and investment.

4. Reward Performance on Positive Indicators

Are you testing same-day delivery or launching a new product recommendation feature on your eCommerce site to a subset of your overall customers? Why not reward your project team on things like engagement levels, repeat usage, average shopping-cart value, time spent on site, and other measures that empower the team to make insightful iterations to further test and prove the concept? These leading positive indicators are far more appropriate than the ROI- or forecast-based models of the past.

5. Allow Teams to Be Flexible

Once a project has achieved its desired outcome, give team members the freedom to move on to the next project in which they’ll leverage their strengths, do work they love, and work alongside interesting people from whom they can learn. Modern workers value engaging work and opportunities to grow their skills and careers. Encouraging cross-team movement should improve both engagement and productivity.

At Facebook, for example, some teams might last a year or more; others might dissolve after just a couple of weeks. When employees finish one project, they get to choose their next teams. The idea is that employees who are given true autonomy will select the projects and teams that allow them to play to their passions and strengths. This, in turn, will boost engagement, creativity, and productivity.

Organizations that adopt these entrepreneurial practices will be able to learn which products are worth investment — and then bring those products to life — much faster than companies encumbered by archaic budget and political constraints. Companies like GE are leading the way in applying these operational concepts, and every company can use these tips to improve their bottom line.

In a way, business is like sports: The organizations with the best talent nearly always win.

The challenge is finding those superstars and convincing them to join your team. To recruit effectively, it takes creativity, dedication, and a firm commitment to quality.

Unfortunately, most companies approach hiring the same way they have for decades. Roles are posted, résumés are screened, candidates are interviewed, and a final candidate is selected. There might be an occasional A-player who fortuitously enters the recruitment life cycle, but by and large, this archaic method only produces average talent.

This traditional way of recruiting is also time-consuming and onerous, which is detrimental to landing the most sought-after candidates. Indeed, the highest performers are generally available for fewer than 10 days. There’s simply not enough time to post an opportunity to an oversaturated job board and then wade through a slew of unqualified résumés to end up with only a few legitimate possibilities.

If landing the most qualified workers is so paramount for thriving in this global marketplace — and it is — why do most organizations keep perpetuating this status-quo process? Could it be that recruiting departments are primarily focused on delivering candidates at the lowest possible cost? Could it be that recruiters are catering to the wrong customers?

In this era of one-click shopping, same-day delivery, customer reviews, and social media, it’s time for companies to reimagine their hiring processes and create a world-class candidate experience that will keep them competitive.

The “Talent Board North American Candidate Experience Research Report” points out that as many as 80 percent of candidates will share a positive experience with their inner circle, defined as close friends, significant others or spouses, and colleagues. More than 60 percent will share negative experiences with the same group. Percentages decrease when it comes to social media, but they remain significant with 51 percent sharing positive experiences and 35 percent opening up about negative ones.

More importantly, though, according to CandE Awards research, nearly half of candidates who ranked their job seeker experience as one-star reported that they would take their alliance and product purchases elsewhere. For those with a five-star experience, almost three-quarters would not only apply to work at the company again, but they would also refer others and make purchases with the company when applicable — and 85 percent of these individuals weren’t even hired.

1. Treat Candidates Like Customers

Some of the most palpable qualities of an excellent candidate experience are speed, transparency, and communication. To do this effectively, show candidates at the outset what they can expect in their recruitment journey. Be upfront about what’s coming, how long it will take, and what they can expect at each step in the process. Candidates also want to be able to track this in real time (just like they can do when placing an order with Amazon, Wayfair, etc.) so they’re not left in the dark for weeks or months on end.

Johnson & Johnson is a prime example of a company doing this right. The organization highlights exactly what to expect during the application process and provides updates at each stage. It has also partnered with The Muse to provide helpful articles and resources to help candidates prepare and succeed at each step of the process.

2. Remove All Friction

Put yourself in your candidate’s shoes. Would you enjoy uploading a résumé only to then be asked to fill out a dozen more fields about your employment history? Then, why are you requiring so many non-essential steps to the application process? Cut out as much as you can and then watch your completion rates explode. For example, AT&T removed half of the fields on its application, and over the next two years, it experienced a 20 percent increase in the number of applicants.

Also, stop sending five emails back and forth just to synchronize your calendars. Instead, use a scheduling application like Calendly to make the process more efficient.

Lastly, reduce the number of interviews conducted. Each candidate doesn’t need to meet eight different people. In fact, Google conducted an exhaustive study and found that the magic number of interviews is four. Hiring managers who conduct four interviews will make the same decision at least 90 percent of the time as managers who conduct more than four. The key is to create a small team of experienced interviewers who have a proven ability to assess the intrinsic factors required for succeeding in a particular role within your organization.

3. Survey Candidates at Every Stage

The most effective way to learn how you can improve your candidate experience is by asking your customers about their journey at every step of the way. Ask them how long it took to complete the application or what they liked best about the interview process. Did they have an enjoyable on-site visit? What could be improved in the offer and negotiation stages? For a comprehensive list of questions, Talent Board is a great resource.

Finally, get an idea of each candidate’s overall satisfaction by determining his or her Net Promoter Score. To do this, ask how likely he or she is to recommend that a friend apply for a job with your company.

4. Close the Loop Quickly

Too many candidates never hear back from employers for months after applying, even when they’ve spent hours preparing their résumé, conducting interviews, taking time off work for an on-site visit, etc. That’s atrocious service and wildly disrespectful.

When you decide a candidate is not the right fit, contact him or her directly within 48 hours. To create advocates, go above and beyond the current status quo by providing honest feedback about why he or she wasn’t the best fit for the role. Sometimes the best way to do this is by simply highlighting the additional preferred experience that was lacking. Additionally, you could point the candidate toward resources that could close the skill gap, such as online courses, certificates, educational bootcamps, etc. Lastly, encourage him or her to apply again after applying your advice.

In this age of transparency and constant communication, organizations of the modern era must reinvent their recruitment processes to deliver world-class candidate experiences — or they’ll fall victims to those that do. Treat your hiring practice as a revenue generator. Your bottom line will thank you!

Behind each of Google’s iconic products are some of the most brilliant people on the planet. Their perennial dominance leaves no question that their greatest asset really is their people! But how do they continually hire the best? What’s their secret?

Fortunately, we no longer have to guess. Thanks to two incredible new books, one by their Executive Chairman, Erich Schmidt, called How Google Works, and the other by their former SVP of People Operations, Laszlo Bock, called Work Rules!(Note: this is by far the greatest book on HR/Talent I’ve ever read), we now have a very detailed understanding of the magic behind Google’s hiring practices.

Thus, over the course of several articles, we’ll dissect each part of Google’s recruiting process and discover what makes it so extraordinary!

To start, we’ll highlight the three overarching principles that define their culture: mission, transparency, and voice.

Mission

Google’s mission is purposefully simple, broad, and absent of commonly used corporate jargon: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Notice how there is no mention of shareholders, profits, or customers. Instead, it’s focused on something much more universal and enduring, something moral, rather than economic. This gives Googlers’ work intrinsic meaning and significance, which spurs motivation and perseverance. Co-founder, Sergey Brin, summarizes it this way: “talented people are attracted to Google because we empower them to change the world.”

Google’s mission is also impossible to achieve. There will always be more information to be organized and new ways to make it accessible. Thus, Google believes that a good mission statement serves as a compass, not a destination. It continually inspires employees to press in, never settle, and always keep creating.

Transparency

At Google, nearly everything is open for observation, questioning, and debate. Transparency is paramount! For example, consider how their code base – the collection of all their source code – is shared with every employee, even those on their first day. They also release the details of every company project and its results, invite anyone to ask questions directly of the CEO, and share the same presentation used at Board meetings with every team member.

The reasons for having this radically transparent workplace are many: it reduces duplication across the organization, increases accountability, drives healthy competition, and communicates to employees that they are valued and trusted. Collectively, these outcomes significantly strengthen engagement and overall performance.

Voice

Google believes that every employee is brilliant and has valuable ideas to contribute. They think that everyone should have a voice about how things are run. This is a dramatic turn from the bureaucratic cultures so dominant across corporate America where significant strategic decisions are exclusively reserved for senior leaders.

In practice, having a voice means that hiring decisions are made by committees (more on that inStep 4), managers are reviewed by employees, people can move to new teams to pursue projects that they’re more passionate about, and everyone is invited to weigh in on how to improve processes and culture, to name a few examples.

Yet, giving every Googler a voice is more than just the right thing to do; it’s also highly pragmatic. In a hyper-competitive market where the world’s most gifted people are being pursued by multiple companies simultaneously, firms that give their employees an opportunity to shape the destiny of their organizations have a distinct competitive advantage.

With this in mind, leaders that are focused on re-vamping their recruiting efforts should begin by ensuring that they have a clear, simple and inspiring mission, a culture of transparency, and an environment where everyone has a voice. This is the first step to world-class hiring!